


Five Times Hermione Granger Kept Working and Five Times She Didn't

by modillian



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Saving the World, Women Being Awesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-11
Updated: 2010-02-11
Packaged: 2017-10-31 12:11:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/343909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/modillian/pseuds/modillian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Contribution to 14valentines in 2010 for Theme Day 11: Economics and Work.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Five Times Hermione Granger Kept Working and Five Times She Didn't

**Author's Note:**

> Contribution to 14valentines in 2010 for Theme Day 11: Economics and Work.

 

 

Hermione kept working:

1\. when her grades were at stake  
2\. when her good sense and ethics were at stake  
3\. when Harry was in danger  
4\. when Ron was in danger  
5\. when she was tired, so tired, but the answer was out there and waiting for her to find it and yet still stubbornly not found -she could taste it on the back of her tongue, the knowledge concealed just beyond her capacity. So she kept striving to meet her capacity and exceed it.

 

 

Hermione did not keep working:

1\. when she was disappointed, and sad, and destroyed, so utterly destroyed, by stupid _boys_ , even, and why did she even come to this horrible place, and no one understood her and -oh, _troll_.

She started working again after that.

 

2\. when she was laid low by butterbeer, and dangling with one leg and one arm off her bed (probably her bed) and she was still aching, aching, deep bone ache that magic couldn't cure because they didn't even acknowledge the ailment, she'd checked over and over again and she'd written to her mother, anxious, and got back _growing pains_ in return but that didn't even cover the vicious groaning stretch seated in the balls of her joints and feeling like the marrow-fibres were peeling out from the center of her bones. In a blubbering confession with the Patils helping her up the castle steps, post-butterbeer at the tavern, they'd just said _it happens to everyone. no, really. all you can do is work through it._

She started working again after that, even through the nasty headache and the constant body aches in the morning.

 

3\. when she was anxious, anxious, so worried with the claw-marks running down her cheeks and so dead-tired and sneezing from the dust and hay fever and miserable and still going over and over and over again in her head, in between stacks, damp laundry detergent and mold spores, sneezing, in between running to and from her house and to and from Ron's house and the constant fear of _I can't do it I didn't do it I wasn't good enough_ with the creeping Mudblood sneers cropping up from the crevices of her brain. It kept cutting her short -breathless, senseless, mindless. _Less_ than.

She passed the tests. She got her OWLs.

It was summer, but, she started working again after that.

 

4\. when she lost them. lost them both, both her friends, after she'd given so much and given _up_ so much and there they were, stuck, immobile and separated and _lost_ -one now in his family's embrace far away from her and the other across the floor of the tent but just as unavailable- and all of it crusted over with a dangling hex between her breasts. She couldn't think. She couldn't breathe. She couldn't _think_.

And then, they found out about the house. The embrace of another's family house in a Hollow. A link to grasp at, a key found, unlocking stasis, moving forward.

She started working again after that.

 

5\. that moment, _that moment_ , that tipping-over moment from a raging fight to aghast horror, Voldemort appearing. That moment replete in despair and anger and hopelessness, when there was nothing left to lose except the wand in her hand and her life forfeit and her mind forfeit and probably her body, next, to the insane wizards or the dementors, and the fighting spark extinguished.

It was still that moment when Neville raised himself against a villain and screamed and suffered and all eyes were upon them, up front. That moment tipped over again into something else. Hermione looked at the people surrounding her and thought, _and yet, and yet, we still stand._

She put her fists up in a clench on her wand.

She started working again after that.


End file.
